Snake Pass On Nintendo Switch Performs Well Against PlayStation 4

Online publication Digital Foundry have taken a look to see how Snake Pass performs on the Nintendo Switch against the PlayStation 4 version and the results are pretty impressive. The platformer is the first Unreal Engine 4 title for Nintendo’s latest hybrid console and while it doesn’t run at the same resolution as the more powerful PlayStation 4, Digital Foundry says that all in all it holds up extremely well. Check out the video below for the definitive analysis.

Developers are the culprit, I don’t think there is anything up there difficult to render on a platform so powerful as the PS4. Also the Unreal Engine 4 is a pretty easy engine to master. Eventually 60 fps were not needed.
If the PS4 can handle the complexity of Horizon, then it can definitely handle this.

You know, I’m generally pretty happy with what I see here. Sure, there are some disappointing aspects – most notably the sub-720p native resolution in 30fps, although that even the PS4 version is also 30fps and itself is still sub 900p does make me feel a little better about that. I also will miss some of the added graphical touches on the PS4, such as field of vision, the water effects, and the extra shadows, etc….but……it looks like the Anti-aliasing is pretty great, and that’s something we’ve been really waiting to see happen on the system, so that’s a win. And even though not entirely up to par with the PS4 version, this is still pretty close! Not a generational gap by any means!

Really this is a big win when viewed from two important angles: a) this puts a definite distance between what the Switch is doing and what the WiiU was able to do. And b) here we see the Switch “hanging with” the PS4 and the XB1 really pretty well – and moreover, we see it on a game that was BOTH a) a big rush job on the Switch, and b) a launch-window game., vs a 4th generation game on the PS4/XB1. That both of these things are true and we STILL have a fairly comparable experience, with even the weird benefit of BETTER grass thickness I think bodes EXTREMELY WELL!!!

I think we all make a tremendous mistake trying to draw our conclusions about the Switch’s absolute performance capabilities by comparing launch Switch games against 4th gen PS4 and XB1 games. The big boys have had time to fully work everything out with those systems, and are now able to wring every last ounce of juice out of them that they can. Not so yet with the Switch. Instead, we should be comparing the launch window Switch games against the launch window PS4 and XB1 games. And what do we see from the XB1 and PS4 launch window library? Well, something that looks an awful lot like the Switch, frankly, a lot more like the Switch than it does like the current XB1 / PS4 catalog, I’d argue. Most games back then were just up-ports of previous gen games, most ran in 900p or less, and few had any particularly decent anti-aliasing – all things that sound acutely familiar to Switch owners!

Now, nobody is attempting to say that the Switch is precisely as powerful as the other two systems. Perhaps the “ceiling under which to grow up from the starting point” won’t be quite as high with the Switch as it was with the others, and seeing basically launch-era PS4/XB1 performance out of the Switch right off the bat may not turn out to be quite as much of a powerfully good omen as I read it to be today.

But the absolute final word on the minutiae of the Switch hardware – and therefore the definitive answer on just where in that spectrum of “better than WiiU, but less than XB1” it ultimately lands, is still not absolutely conclusively answered. And all I’m saying is that based on what we observe in the wild of the Switch launch performance vs the other’s launch performance, and even a respectable “part of the club” / “hanging with the big boys” performance relative the other system’s current output paints the picture to me that the Switch docked is going to land much closer to the XB1 than the WiiU. If WiiU is “1”, and XB1 is “100”, then I’m starting to feel things like “70-80” are not unreasonable, out-of-the-question hopes for the Switch!

And remember PS4 people, In addition to being a Switch owner (and an XB1 and PS4 owner), I’m also a PC owner. So from my vantage point “further up the mountain”, the sight of you at your relatively low perch looking down derisively on the Switch sitting at a somewhat lower perch a little further down the mountain from you and puffing yourself up in your mockery of the Switch hardware is……well……adorable. Meanwhile, the more I see concerning the Switch, the more [not less] optimistic and excited I become for the thing, and the more powerful those pangs of “do I even still need you anymore, PS4” become. So, food for thought.

I’ll get this on Switch. And if I do get a second version, I won’t waste my time with the PS4 version…..I’ll go straight for the PC – where just like you, I might not be getting 60fps either…..but at least I’ll be getting it in native 4K with all the settings cranked to way-past-PS4 max! See? I’m seeing the tops of the PS4Pro people’s heads here as well from up here! And what’s more, ive got it great at the base of the mountain too as when I leave the mountain, I can keep playing by taking the Switch with me! Boom!!!! :-)